Talk:Lingua europa/Mad
I´m not sure that the Jäger accent is supposed to be German accent at all. First of all, I´m German, and I don´t talk like that ;-) I do have a horrible accent, for example I *still* can´t pronounce the "th" properly after 20 years, but my accent is different. Germans typically mispronounce "th" as "zz" or "ss", not as "t" like the Jägers; I know I do it all the time. We also tend to mispronounce "you" as "u", not "hyu". I have heard an accent similar to a Jäger´s from a professor from Turkey whose lecture I attended one semester; I had to fight down a chuckle every time he mentioned "turd-world countries"... :-D But most of all, Jäger accent reminds me of Russian accent; I hear plenty of Russian-accented German from other students at university, and the similarity is definitely there. Second, the Jägers aren´t the only ones who talk like that - the little girl´s mom also speaks with Jäger accent. Since Mechanicsburg is pretty much established to be located in Romania, could Jäger accent be Romanian accent? Or maybe (the Foglio idea of) Romanian country bumpkin dialect? On the other hand, the introduction to one of the GG print editions credits Professor Phil Foglio with compiling a "Jägermonster/Romanian dictionary and phrasebook" (called "Hey Dere, Sveethot!"), which would indicate that Jägermonsters do NOT speak Romanian among themselves - and not German either. - Sir Chaos 19:56, 7 February 2009 (UTC) :Yay! Linguistics! I hope it's okay if I ramble. I'd say that for native English speakers, the Jäger accent definitely reads as a very silly German accent (even potentially offensive? Not being German, I couldn't say). But it's very specific, the sort of accent I associate with funny, goofy characters that have been around for a long time (Katzenjammer Kids, Sergeant Schultz). I have certainly never heard a real German accent in my life that sounded anything like a Jäger. Good thing too, or it would make me giggle a lot. :) :My wild guess is that this old stereotypical accent may have been based on what English-speaking immigrants to America thought German-speaking immigrants sounded like (hence, Katzenjammer Kids). The dialects must have been different in the 19th century. (Proper pronunciation of American English sounded British back then.) What does a German "country" accent sound like? Is it possible that it's based on an old German regional dialect and that's where a number of immigrants came from? Of course, German immigrants suffered a class difference for many years, so the accent may have just come from bigots making fun of them. :By the way, General Khrizhan seems to have a slightly different accent. It reads as sort of Russian to me, but without the deep rolled "L" or "Y" sounds. :As far as the internal consistency of the comic is concerned, we have a few possibilities: # The characters really are speaking English and the accent is intended to be German. # The characters actually all speak German and the accent is Mechanicsburg regional (Romanian, Transylvanian, etc?) # The characters speak either English or German and the accent is old because the Jägers are old and that's just how they spoke once upon a time. :--mnenyver 22:45, 7 February 2009 (UTC) ::You´re welcome. And yeah, since *everybody* says the Jägers speak with German accent, I kind of figured that people would think this is German accent. ;-) As for offensive... I don´t know. Usually stereotypical German accent just ticks me off, but with the Jägers, I think it´s hilarious. I´m not sure what makes the difference. Maybe it´s because the Jägers are such "fonny guyz". ::I don´t know about accents in the 19th century. Written German from back then isn´t all that different - you´d have to go back to say early 17th for it to become markedly weird. (incidentally, around the time the 9 Muses were created) German country accent varies widely - to the point where for example rural Bavarian and rural Frisian are pretty much mutually unintelligible. ::I´m all in favor of the second and/or third option you describe. Archaic language would be one possibility, but would not explain why Little Girl´s mother (but not Little Girl herself) speaks Jäger accent. On the other hand, perhaps the local Mechanicsburg dialect *is* archaic language - languages evolve at different speeds, and more isolated languages evolve more slowly. :: And Jäger accent is inconsistent, too. Maxim has no problem pronouncing "thinking" , for example. A fourth option may be that Jäger accent is simply a consequence of the metamorphosis they went through in their Jägerization impairing their speech apparatus. Maybe you simply *can´t* pronounce that "th" sound when you´ve got fangs instead of incisors? Not that I´m going to test that... :-D -Sir Chaos 23:09, 7 February 2009 (UTC) I (also German) agree that to me the accent used by the Jägermonster seems to be not German, probably not from the real worls. I have sometimes for fun read out their texts loud, and I think I aquired some feeling how it would actually sound like, and came to the conclusion it is probably from a language other than (New High) German. I even think I know how it could sound applied to German- I think if I were to translate Girl Genius, I would render the Jäger accent something like:"Unt jedär 'Plan, bey tem du deinenn Hutt verlierzt, izt ein schlekhtär 'Plann."Tardipode 20:21, January 21, 2012 (UTC)Tardipode Something else to ponder, though I don´t know how it affects our theories: Da Boyz. Maxim (or Maksim) is a Russian name. Ognian (Ognyan) is a Bulgarian name, but Oggie once says "piece of piroshki" instead of "piece of cake", and piroshki is a Russian kind of baked stuffed buns. Dimo may well be an incorrect affectionate form or nickname for the Russian name Dimitri (the correct one, BTW, could be Mitya). This could indicate that the Heterodynes were originally from Russia, or at least that the personnel that was subsequently jägerized was originally recruited from Russia. -Sir Chaos 19:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC) :I know that when I first encountered the comic, my guess was that the accent was not a German one, but a Russian one, more specifically the kind of Russian accent Americans became familiar with due to Jewish immigrants from Russia. As you've also noted, there is quite a bit of linguistic variability in the German language area (i.e., Low German and High German or Hochdeutsch). :An even wilder possibility is that they're speaking English in Europa Wulfenbach, which is why the Jägers sound funny when speaking with a German accent. After all, a German accent is what you're supposed to have when speaking German! This could result from a British conquest of Europe that was eventually overthrown... leaving the British Isles in their present fragmentary state. --Quadibloc 01:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC) Just from the geography and history we have to hand, I explain the Jäger accent as being archaic and rural Roumanian (which has the benefit of not being easily disproven). They're all at least 100 years old, it seems, and either from Mechanicsburg itself (mountainous, isolated but for invasion-facilitating roads and bridges) or not too far away, as troops recruited elsewhere would be less reliable -- and the Jägerdraught was only given to their best-of-the-best. Also, fangs. There's also the Xena/Hercules factor of 'this is all being translated for you [from lingua europa] into our best approximation', except the translators have tongues firmly planted in cheeks. The difference in speech has to be shown some''how, as we can't just hear it. Corgi 09:26, 12 February 2009 (UTC) :I think you guys are all leaving something out, though, which is that there were originally two groups of people in Mechanicsburg, the natives (under von Mekkhan) and the invaders (under Ht'rokd'n or whatever). Some of the Jaegergenerals date almost (if not about) to that time.⚙Zarchne 11:56, 24 February 2009 (UTC) :: Considering we're talking about something happening (well) over a half-century before the current story-timepoint, the natives and the likely-Hunnish-or-related-tribes undoubtedly blended well before the Jägers were first created (I think there's at least a couple centuries' separation). Take a look at the history of Romanian for why I say this -- Latin had started changing into its daughter language and managed to remain distinct in the Dacian communities (or Vlach, if you want to be that way), even while the Magyars swirled around them. There's also a curious parallel in the Welsh, where the Welsh-origin'd king of Britain did more to contribute to killing off the language of his people than any of the Norman-Saxon kings before him (and even more curiously, preserving it, but that came later). :: In other words, the invaders took over the authority, but the local culture took over them. There's local loan words (nov shmoz ka pop?) which are possibly artefacts of those tribesmen, but just due to numbers, they ended up speaking Romanian and initially fighting with/massacring Székely/Magyars, and later the imported Germans (who became the Sachsen). The fighting-with (female prisoners, etc.) would add more hash to the local dialect, but not change the language as a ''whole. :: Corgi 19:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC) :::Of course, "Nov shmoz ka pop?" is an in-joke, referring to a very famous old comic strip... and it was quoted in later places, such as MAD magazine. --Quadibloc 01:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC) : Something else to consider... I´ve just started playing Jagged Alliance 2 again, which as you may know contains the character queen Deidranna, who whenever the player liberates another place has a cutscene with her lieutenant, Elliot. Although her subtitles aren´t phonetic, her frequent exclamation "Elliot, you idiot!" sounds exactly what I would expect the jäger version (see Dimo´s frequent exclamation "Hyu eediots!"). Queen Deidranna is stated to have been Romanian before she came to the nation the game is set in, so this might be another indication that Jägerspeak is supposed to be Romanian accent. -Sir Chaos 17:19, November 15, 2010 (UTC) Kudos I just want to say concerning the actual theory expressed on this /Mad article page (without expressing an opinion concerning its "truth value"): I think it's awesome, good job. My impression of a lot the above discussion is that it belongs on the main discussion page, instead. ⚙Zarchne 04:49, 17 February 2009 (UTC) Re: Russian names of Da Boyz While Mitya is one correct shortname from the Russian Dmitri, Dima is also a very common option. I also note other Slavic Jaeger-names, like Minsk and Andre. 22:22, 7 August 2009 (UTC) Kaneli German Language an Accents Hi There first of all this discussion is quite interesting. Since I'm from Germany and German is my native language, maybe I can add something of interest. First of all, you should keep in Mind that there is not on German accent. {C I varies greatly with the dialect and there are several very distinguished dialects in Germany and by distinguished I mean that they are sometimes even hard to understand even for Germans. This is true especially for the Bavarian and the Saxonian dialect, which are also the most well known as far as I know. {C I sometimes get the impression that especially many Americans think that German an Bavarian is pretty much the same, nut that's a mistake. I also noticed that some German accents are often linked to a certain kind of character in many movies and TV series. The Bavarian is mostly portayed good natured but somewhat goofy. Sgt Schulz is a good example since you already mentioned him. On the other hand evertime some evil Nazi turns up, he has a heavy saxonian dialect. Maybe Saxonian sounds evil and Bavarian sounds silly to Americans? I have no Idea and to be honest saxonian sould pretty silly too ;-) However back to topic: I have tried to imagine how the Jägers actually would sound. To be honest it does not remind me much of a German accent. My first impression was a mix between the way the Orcs of Warhammer speak an Jiddish. Maybe the Idea about the slavic language is heading in a similar direction but personally I think that it's pretty much a fantasy accent which has similarities with several real acents. However the German language is very present in the World of Girl Genius. {C There are lots of German Names (Klaus von Wulfenbach, Sturmhalten, Sturmvoraus, etc) and People often adress each other using 'Herr' oder 'Frau' instead of Mr or Mrs. {C If I should make a guess I'd say that German is either the common language of Europa (which ist german for Europe by the way) or at least a Language spoken by many Nobles. It's just substituted by English so you can understand it ;-) and the many German names and occasional German Names should remind you that it's actually German (Again Games Workshops Warhammer world and especially 'the Empire' is a good reference). The Jägers are just speaking some obscure Dialect. You may also keep in mind, that Jägers get much older than Humans and if I remember correctly none were created for over 100 years, so maybe they just still speak the dialect, which was common in the days they were created and since they keep much to themselves they would just keep talking that way. Varric 12:41, April 15, 2010 (UTC) Accents and Actors I'm sorry if this is in the wrong subsection, but I don't seem to know how to add to the page directly. I agree with the notion that the accents seem to sound more Eastern European than German. Its more like Zsa Zsa Gabor (Hungarian,) than Schultz. John Banner (Sgt. Schultz,) was an Austrian, and escaped the Nazis when he was 28, so I assume most of that accent is his normal one. Obviously, our resident German expert would know the distinction better. (I studied German for a year in high school, but have forgotten most of it years ago.) Generally, the series has the feel that although the Lingua Europa IS German, we are not in Germany, we are much further East, somewhere in the Balkans. The native language in Mechanicsburg might be (or have been) Romanian or Hungarian, (more old mad scientists stories are set there than in Germany,) and the locals have learned German early. For the Jaegers, on the other hand, it is very much a secind language, hence the accent. Baby Rorschach 01:15, November 17, 2010 (UTC) This is cleared up somewhat in the books. The language all Europa speaks is Romanian, according to Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess. Page 269. However, English is the language of trade. Jagermonsters carefully maintain and cultivate their original Mechanisburg accent. Also, there is a Mechanisburg language, although it has fallen into disuse. This according to Agatha H. and the Airship City, and Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess. 19:00, May 4, 2012 (UTC)